In the Christian literary tradition, Lot’s wife was turned to salt for daring to look backwards towards the spectacle of personal and collective trauma. In this reflective roundable, the scholars and artists affiliated with “This Is What I Want” will attempt to look backwards over the events of the festival and the trans-historical milieu into which it is nestled. Why is the act of looking so central to our species and its systems of control? Whom and how does it serve as a tool? Is it possible to reject, reflect, refract, resist, return, repeat or repeal the gaze? How many forms of gazing might there be?

Join us for a 90 minute moderated artist/scholar conversation with the audience.